Symbolic Link with HTTP
 

Good Day All

I am having an issue viewing the symbolic link i created. I created a link to my web folder (using fedora 14). When i try to view it in a browser , i get the error: 403 Forbidden, You do not have permission to access the "file" on the server.



I did the following:
I added the below to my /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file
"
<Directory “path to directory like /var/www/html/folder”>
options Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny

Allow from all

</Directory>
"
"then i restarted httpd"
However that did not work


Any help would be greatly appreciated

Regards,
Brian

I don't think the webserver has permissions to follow symlinks that are not in the webserver directory path defined in <Directory ...></Directory>

Are you sure the folder you're sym-linking to has the proper permissions? What does it show for owner, group & permissions when you ls -l it? You need r-x or rwx for the 3rd set (public/other) unless it is owned by the web server's id or group. It's www-data on my Debian system, not sure if Fedora 14 uses the same id or if you've changed it.

--Bryan

P.S. I know this technique works, because I've placed websites I maintain in my home folder and symlink from /var/www into /home/me/www/folder and it works great.

Hey,
Well first off I hope this isn't literal ;)
Cause that won't fly.

Second what is the ownership/permissons of the directory the symlink is referancing? It will need to be something apache can read. If you don't know then issue a
and depending on your distro
or
check your /etc/passwd to find out which.

Or you could chmod to something apache can read, but not write. Stay away from 777.

It would help if we saw what the actual dir is, but I suspect an SELinux issue.
You may also want to consider this page https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_userdir.html

folder is called timetable

its in my home directory e.g. /home/bhall/Dropbox/timetable ...the permissions are

drwxrwxrwx 2 apache apache 20480 Sep 16 00:26 timetable

In /var/www/html folder i created the sym link timetable

The permissions are:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sept 16 00:32 timetable -> /home/bhall/Dropbox/timetable

(the way i am doing it is using dropbox to sync my files with another machine.